Sébastien-Roch Nicolas Quotes
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Someone has said that to plagiarise from the ancients is to play the pirate beyond the Equator, but that to steal from the moderns is to pick pockets at street corners.
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In a country where everyone strives for attention, it is better to be bankrupt than to be nothing.
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All that I've learned, I've forgotten. The little that I still know, I've guessed.
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Whoever is not a misanthrope at forty can never have loved mankind.
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Were a man to consult only his reason, who would marry? For myself, I wouldn't marry, for fear of having a son who resembled me.
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We leave unmolested those who set the fire to the house, and prosecute those who sound the alarm.
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Society would be a charming affair if we were only interested in one another.
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The great always sell their society to the vanity of the little.
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At the sight of what goes on in the world, the most misanthropic of men must end by being amused, and Heraclitus must die laughing.
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People are governed with the head; kindness of heart is little use in chess.
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There are two things that one must get used to or one will find life unendurable: the damages of time and injustices of men.
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False modesty is the most decent of all lies.
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Satire is the disease of art.
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It is with happiness as with watches: the less complicated, the less easily deranged.
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Most books today seemed to have been written overnight from books read the day before.
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There is no history worthy attention save that of free nations; the history of nations under the sway of despotism is no more than a collection of anecdotes.
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Nearly all men are slaves for the same reason that the Spartans assigned for the servitude of the Persians -- lack of power to pronounce the syllable, "No." To be able to utter that word and live alone, are the only means to preserve one's freedom and one's character.
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Secrecy is best taught by starting with ourselves.
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Most of those who make collections of verse or epigram are like men eating cherries or oysters: they choose out the best at first, and end by eating all.
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The art of the parenthesis is one of the greatest secrets of eloquence in Society
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It is inconceivable how much wit it requires to avoid being ridiculous.
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Wicked people sometimes perform good actions. I suppose they wish to see if this gives as great a feeling of pleasure as the virtuous claim for it.
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Life is a malady in which sleep soothes us every sixteen hours; it is a palliation; death is the remedy.
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Whatever evil a man may think of women, there is no woman but thinks more.